


The Diner Job

by Carbocat



Category: Leverage
Genre: Backstory, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-02 09:44:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12724206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbocat/pseuds/Carbocat
Summary: “Aw hell, Nate, do we have a plan for when Eliot pisses off the locals?”“Yes, it’s Plan M,” Eliot growled, twisting a little harder on the guy’s arm. “And I rip off your arms and beat him with them.”





	1. Chapter 1

Sometimes Eliot hated Nate.

He hated how he thought they could just charge full speed ahead, guns a blazed, into a con and everything not go completely and utterly wrong. He hated that Nate doesn’t have contingency plans, that for all of Plan C, D, F, M, he never planned a goddamn thing until Plan A crashed and burned.

He hated that they win.

He hated that they won all the damn time with a frequency that could only be contributed to luck, good timing, and the grace of some god out there. And even then, they got out by the skin of their teeth.

 He hated that every con succeeded only solidified that belief that they didn’t need those Plan L, M, N, O, P, that they didn’t need contingency for when the bad guys were too bad, when they were outsmarted, outgunned, outmanned, or something added up wrong.

“You’re our contingency, Eliot,” Nate had stated, patting him hard on the back as he made his way to the liquor cabinet.

Eliot didn’t say anything then, just held back the groan that burnt through him from a sore and bruised back and bit down on the question of what happened when he went down and stayed down. Like Eliot said nothing now, after his raised concerns had been shot down.

If you needed something stolen, you got Parker. If you wanted to hack the White House, or the CIA, or FIFA, you bribed Hardison with orange soda and Star Trek marathons. Needed a grifter; Eliot knew a few.

A drunk off his ass mastermind with a death wish, Eliot was staring at him now, pushing him towards the exit with rough hands and a growled _go_ because Nate never fucking listened.

If you wanted to go up against a dick of a CEO with ex-law enforcement on his payroll, call Eliot.

If you needed someone to take on three pissed off guards with stances that spelled out military training and trouble, with arms the size of boulders, and a good four inches on ya, call Eliot.

Eliot sometimes really hated Nate, especially when the baddies finally got a clue and realized it was far more effective to take him on all at once instead of one on one. Especially considering the bastard was going to consider this a win because they effectively screwed over their mark.

Seriously, screw Nate and his Plan E, J, X, and Z. Eliot said not to take this damn job in the first goddamn place.

Eliot never died in any of those plans, ended up with a cool scar but never died.

That didn’t make it better. It didn’t account for the pain.

Eliot didn’t remember getting in the car, doesn’t remember anything after big hands wrapping tightly around his throat and his head connecting with something sharp that had made his vision fade out. Only that Parker had said, in a voice that seemed too far away, and echo-y, and like it was whispered through a long hollow tube, that she tased a guy, it was _awesome_.

He doesn’t remember ditching the rental or stealing a new one, only the fleeting feeling of vertigo and Hardison’s bitching about not getting the warranty back. There was no malice in that voice, no playfulness, or irritation, only a tight grip on his hip and his own slurred, sarcastic apology.

He does remember the new rental, obtained legally and bigger with some seats and dark windows, and a weak argument that he should be allowed to sit alone in the farthest seat back because it was what he wanted. He doesn’t remember how that argument ended, only that Hardison had helped with the seatbelt that he had forgotten and Parker’s hand got swatted away before she managed to aggravate his head wound.

“It’s not a wound,” he muttered.

“Oh yeah,” Hardison replied sarcastically, too loud, too close, too much of a hint of slight hysterics under exaggerated exasperation. “And what would you call the gaping _wound_ in your forehead?”

“Scratch,” he replied. It took more effort than it was worth, really.

Eliot felt, rather than heard Hardison sigh, “You’re getting a dictionary for Christmas, man, because you clearly don’t know what half the words you say mean. I get why you were so pitchy now.”

“I wasn’t pitchy,” he muttered.

“That’s boring,” Parker spoke up, but Eliot couldn’t place where the voice was coming from with his eyes closed. “And not shiny at all. Eliot should have shiny things, everyone likes shiny things.”

“You sure you don’t need a doctor or something, man?” Hardison asked once again, shoulder bumping painfully into his recently-relocated shoulder (he remembered that, vividly) as Nate took their rental around a sharp corner. Another worried look passed over Hardison at the blood sluggishly sliding down the side of Eliot’s face.

“I’m fine.”

Eliot thought about telling him that head wounds bled a lot, that the bandana was doing a lot to suck it up. He didn’t know how that would possibly get the look of thinly-veiled horror off the glances Sophie kept sending him in the rearview mirror so he kept it to himself.

“Really, I’m fine,” he repeated. “I’ll let you know when I’m not.”

“When?” Hardison pointed out. “Not _if_?”

“ _If_ ‘m not.”

“You don’t look fine, man,” Hardison stated and Parker from his other side had agreed.

“There’s a hospital in the next town over,” Nate stated. “It’s too hot to stay here.”

“I’m not goin’ to a damn hospital, Nate,” Eliot growled.

“You’re going to bleed out,” Sophie pointed out gesturing to where his blood was currently sliding down the leather interior of the door. They weren’t going to get their warranty back on this one either, he noted offhandedly.

“I’m fine,” he said again. “I can…ya know.”

He doesn’t remember when he fell asleep, somewhere in between finding the words to what he knew they knew that he could do and his seatbelt locking into place as the door was pulled out from under his elbow.

“No hospital.”

“It’s not a hospital,” Hardison said in a way that made Eliot think that he kinda wished it was. “It’s a diner, straight outta nineteen fifty-five. I’m pretty sure I see some Pink Ladies in there.”

“Most of the bleeding stopped,” Nate informed him from beside Hardison.

They were hovering. They were hovering and trying to make it look like they weren’t, but they were also doing a good job at blocking out the early morning sun so Eliot accepted it for the moment. “We need you to get cleaned up before we cross state lines.”

“Okay,” he said fumbling to unlock the seatbelt before stumbling out of the car. Hardison reached for him but he faltered when Eliot glared at him. “’m fine.”

“Sure, you are,” he replied sarcastically, throwing up his hands. “Yeah, yeah, you’re fine and I’m Pope John, the third.”

“You could be,” Eliot grumbled, dragging his feet over to the trunk. Though now that he thought about it, he had no recollection of them stopping at the hotel to grab their stuff. “Hack the Vatican or somethin’.”

“I could,” Hardison reflected lightly with a shrug. Eliot, not as surprised as he probably should have been, found his bag sitting on top of everyone else’s next to his newly-restocked first-aid kit.

He slipped into an old dirty jacket, zipped it up as far as he could without feeling like he was suffocating. He pulled the hood down over his eyes to hide the worst of the blood when Hardison mentioned helping him.

“I got it.”

“Got what? Blood loss? I think it’s blood loss if you think-“

“I got it, Hardison!” He snapped, then repeated the words to Nate. “It looks worse than it is. I just need a mirror and a room that locks, preferably.”

“Diner,” Nate stated over Hardison’s protest, gesturing to the place behind him. “We’re getting breakfast. You got an hour tops, fifteen minutes before one of us finds you.”

“I’ll be done in ten.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Is Eliot going to die?”

“Parker, we talked about this,” Sophie groaned. “That question is not appropriate.”

“Oh, right,” She pouted, biting down on her lip. “But, Nate, is Eliot going to die?”

“Eliot’s going to be fine, Parker,” Nate told her. “Why are you loitering out here?”

“Waiting for you,” Sophie replied over Parker’s ‘ _waiting to see if Eliot is going to die,’_ though both were distracted by Eliot digging around in the trunk.

“If Eliot’s fine than why isn’t he here with us?” Parker asked.

“He’ll join us later,” Nate answered before Hardison could tell her if was because Eliot was a stubborn bastard and Nate was doing his whole ‘reckless idiot’ shtick.

“Yeah, yeah, girl,” Hardison added, trying to play it cool because Parker looked genuinely worried. “He’s just doing, uh, Eliot stuff. He’ll be back bitchin’ about your cereal before you know it.”

She smiled.

“Now,” Nate cut in. “Let’s get breakfast.”

“Let’s go steal breakfast!” Parker grinned.

“No, Parker, we’re not stealing-“ Nate trailed off after she jumped up and dashed into the place before he could finish.

It wasn’t that Hardison was all that surprised by the inside of the diner because, yep, nineteen fifty-five was alive and well inside of this place. He’d been in enough diners in enough blink-and-you’ll-miss-it little towns in enough boringly shaped states to know that there was never really a difference between them.

They were all the same. From the polyvinyl seats to the out of order jukebox in the corner, all the way to the old timey regulars at the bar and the pancake surprise special. It was all the same.

But that… that was the problem, really. It was the same but it wasn’t. The old timer with the eggs and bacon heart attack on a plate, the smell of syrup and burnt coffee, the polyvinyl, but something was off about it. Just enough to put Hardison on edge, though, he wasn’t quite sure.

Eliot would know.

Eliot, with the concussion, the dislocated shoulder, that wanted no help with his bags. He would know what was off. It’s be distinctive.

The place felt well love, felt clean in the way that other diner’s didn’t. The year might have been a hoppin’ nineteen fifty-five inside of the place but not in a way that felt like it was forgotten there or cheap but rather preserved. The regular wasn’t some cigarette smoking gruff drunk with a rough country accent but a beanpole of a man in a cheap suit making googly eyes at the waitress.

It was…nice. Which made it weird.

“I like this place!” Parker announced from beside him, with that Cheshire cat twinkle in her eye that she usually reserved for when she stole something.

She would like it here, Hardison thought, because Parker was slightly off just like this place.

“No stealing, Parker,” He muttered, as he made eye contact with the waitress at the counter.

Parker hummed, slightly disappointed, before pulling Hardison to a booth by the window with a bone-grinding grip on his hand. The waitress had just corked an eyebrow in amusement so he shrugged, sending her his ‘it’s Parker, whadd’ya gonna do’ shrug.

She’d just smiled, shook her head like an overzealous thief was something she dealt with every day before holding up four menus in question.

He shook his head as he slide into the booth, flashed five fingers to her before tuning back into Nate’s run down of what was left of their plan (what hadn’t fell apart or was vetoed as being a stupid ass thing to do and…and damn, Eliot was right about this con when he said running in blind was a bad idea). A glance over his shoulder let him see that Eliot was limping his way slowly to the diner, duffel bag thrown over his uninjured shoulder and hood pulled down low.

The plan, as it turned out, consisted of fixing Eliot (of Eliot fixing Eliot because Hardison still through they needed a damn hospital), driving to the small airport in Nebraska where Eliot ‘knows a guy’ that ‘owes him a favor.’ Then reuniting with Lucille in Philadelphia and getting Philly cheese steaks because reasons.

Eliot would probably growl and threaten someone at some point, Parker will sing the Fresh Prince theme song at least three times. There will be an argument (because there always is) about who’s flying and who’s driving back to Boston. Then Nate won’t keep that promise about taking a break he made before this con, so back to work.

Yada, yada, the usual.

You know, the just another typical thieving con vac. To Nowhereville, OK.

“Hello,” the waitress from the counter greeted them with a wide smile that effectively cut off Nate’s rambling instructions to wipe the camera from the warehouse (which he’d always done, thank you very much). She passed around the menus, leaving the fifth one next to where Hardison sat on the end before pulling a pen and notepad from her apron, “I’m Elizabeth, I’ll be your waitress. How are you this morning?”

Hardison just whistled in a way that sounded like a cartoon missile falling and ready to explode. That was the question, wasn’t it?

One hell of a load question because yeah, they were all mostly alive but they’d been up all night, Nate was still wearing a ruined jacket, and Eliot looked like he took on King Kong, but hey! They completed the mission, right?

“That good, huh?” She asked with a slight upturn of her lip. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Milk!” Parker called out, followed by Sophie and Nate plowing over Hardison’s own order to ramble over each other like the sleep-deprived heathens of society they all were. She had just smiled, and with quick writing, recorded everything down in her notebook before asking, “So, traveling?”

“Yes!” Parker jumped, leaning into Hardison’s personal space to wink at him. “Yes, _traveling_. That’s what we’re doing, ‘ _traveling’_ the great American west coast.”

“We’re in Oklahoma, Parker, what are you-?” He asked, cutting himself off with a shake of the head and a look to Elizabeth as if to say ‘look what I have to deal with.’ “Don’t mind her, she’s just, uh-“

“Parker,” both Sophie and Nate finished, distractedly looking passed Hardison and out the window.

“I – huh, what are the specials today? What’s the best thing on the menu?” He asked urgently, drawing back Elizabeth’s attention from looking out the windows. There was no reason to piss Eliot off because a good Samaritan got a good look at him. “Cause, girl, let me tell you. I’ve got these allergies….and I’m, ya know, starving. And my girl, Parker, she’s a big fan of cereal, a really big fan, the sugary kind.”

“With marshmallows,” Parker added. “And fortune cookies.”

“We don’t have those kinds of cereal, darling,” Elizabeth said as the bell over the door chimed. “But we do have pancakes! And, um, if…if you look at the second page in your menu, they can be pretty cavity-inducing.”

“Yeah, cool,” Hardison nodded, looking down at the page and pointing out which one he thought would put Parker in an instant sugar-coma. “Cool, cool, can we – where’d she go?”


End file.
